Another night in a prison cell
by HeroesLover77
Summary: Yep, it's another one of these stories. Sheppard and McKay are unjustly kept in a prison cell, and things are not going well...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Disclaimer - I don't own anything or anyone mentioned in the story, they are property of…however owns them. ENJOY!

CHAPTER ONE -

"Okay, dogs or cats?"

"Dogs." John replied, keeping his eyes on the sky in front of him.

"Figures." McKay said under his breath.

"Alright, Beatles or Rolling Stones." John challenged.

"Ooh, tough one. But I'd have to say Beatles. Okay, Canucks or Flames." McKay asked.

John looked at him, puzzled.

"Huh?"

"They're hockey teams!" Rodney exclaimed. "Vancouver Canucks? Calgary Flames?"

"No idea." John told him simply.

He clucked his tongue. "And you call yourself a sports fan?"

Before Sheppard could retort, something went wrong. The controls of the jumper start flashing, and navigation screens went all snowy.

"What's going on?" Rodney cried.

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" Sheppard said, trying some different control switches. "Go check the energy panel!" He ordered.

Rodney grabbed his hand held computer and went to the back of the ship. He removed a plate from the ceiling to expose the power source underneath, and he got to work. However, minutes later, the problem was still undiagnosed, and John had lost complete control of the jumper.

"Come in, Atlantis! This is Sheppard, do you read? Atlantis, this is Major Sheppard! Come in!" No answer.

"I don't understand…" Rodney whispered to himself, as he double checked the computer readings. Nothing appeared to be wrong!

"McKay, we need to get out of here!" John shouted, spinning in his chair.

"What!" Rodney asked. He glanced out the front window. "We're, like, 200 metres over a huge lake!"

"Yeah, well, we're losing altitude and approaching the mainland fast! If we don't evacuate now, we are going to burn up when this thing crash lands! Come on!" He jumped up and opened the back of the jumper. The change in air pressure nearly sucked them out.

"Just one more minute..!" Rodney began, but John didn't let him finished. He smacked the computer out of his hand, and grabbed him by the vest. Then, he jumped, plummeting himself and his friend into the dark lake below.

They re-emerged from the water just in time to see the jumper crash into a building on the mainland, and burst into flames. John and Rodney looked at one another, anxiously, soaking wet and bobbing up and down as they treaded in the frigid water.

Back at Atlantis, Weir and the rest of the team had in fact received John's distress call.

"Major Sheppard, come in! What's the situation? Major Sheppard?" No reply.

"They seem to be able to transmit but no receive messages. The Major sounded pretty panicked. What planet were they on?" Elizabeth asked.

"P4Z 399, ma'am." Replied one of the technicians.

"We'll wait one hour to see Major Sheppard contacts us again, and if not, we'll send reinforcements." She said. Ronon and Teyla nodded solemnly. They all just hoped their friends were okay.

A/N: Please R/R!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two -

"Rodney, stop complaining. I'm soaking wet too, you know." John said tiredly. He and McKay swam through the water until the could touch the lake floor. Then Sheppard stopped.

"Why are we stopping?" Rodney asked, hugging himself to keep warm.

"If they saw us eject from the jumper, they might be waiting for us on the shore." John said.

"Well, what are the chances of that?"

"Unlikely, I guess." John said after a second. "We were still pretty far from the city. Let's go." They continued wading forward until they reached the shore line.

"Dry land!" Rodney exclaimed dramatically. He dropped to his hands and knees and kissed the sand. John rolled his eyes.

"Come on." He said. "We should figure out a way back across the lake as quickly as possible. Once we're across we should be able to make it back to the stargate before it gets too dark."

Rodney got up and brushed the sand off his pants.

"And how do you propose we get back across, hmm? Should we just swim back? Or maybe we could just waltz into town and say 'Okay excuse me, could you give us a lift? Our ship got a bit bent up when we crashed it into your building." Sarcasm dripped from the scientist's words the way the water dripped off his clothes.

"Look, I don't need this from you right now, okay?" John said sternly. "Just help me find a way to -"

He was cut off the sound of something moving around in the brush up ahead. John reached for his side arm, only to find he had left it in the puddle jumper. Either way, it probably wouldn't have been of much use.

A dozen or so men with guns similar to John's stepped out through the trees, weapons fixed on the pair of explorers. John and Rodney knew the routine by now. That was their cue to put their hands behind their heads.

"Who are you?" Barked the leader. "Are you terrorists?"

"What?" John said. "No! No, what happened with our ship was an accident!"

"Do you know how many times I have heard that before?" Asked the man. He obviously didn't believe him.

"Okay…" John said. But he didn't know what to say.

"Bring them!" The leader ordered. Four men stepped forward, and each grabbed an arm of their prisoners.

"Seriously. I'm sorry about the trouble this had caused, and we'll pay for any damages, but this is all unnecessary!" John protested, as they began dragging them roughly along the beach.

"Silence! We know you are part of the revolt! And you will tell us who else belongs to the rebellion!" The leader told him.

John and Rodney exchanged worried looks, before being shoved forward towards the city.

Back on Atlantis, Weir had a team assembled in the gate room.

"Listen, radio me as soon as you know anything." She instructed, once the wormhole was established.

"We will." Teyla said. She nodded to the gate, and the marines who were accompanying them walked through.

"And don't worry. We'll bring them back safe." She said. Elizabeth nodded, and Teyla and Ronon followed the team through.

A/N: Okay, another really short chapter. Please R/R!


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three -

"Okay, is it just me, or has this cell gotten smaller since we got here?"

"It's just you." John assured him. "McKay, we've only been here half an hour. I suggest you just relax a bit…"

"Relax? How am I supposed to relax?" Rodney demanded. "Maybe if I just…" He tried rattling the door of the cell again, to no avail.

"What do you know. Still locked." John said from what was a sorry excuse for his bed.

"Well at least I'm trying to get us out of here!" Rodney snapped. "All you are doing is sitting there!"

"There are guards everywhere, we have no weapons, no means of getting back to the gate…what we need to do is think this situation through rationally."

"Fine, you sit there and think all you want. In the meantime, I'll keep working on an escape!" He said angrily. He turned and kicked the bars of the cell so hard he winced, and hopped on the other foot over to his cot to sit down.

"Are you -"

"I'm fine." McKay interjected, almost resentfully.

"Come on, man, what's with all the hostility?" Sheppard asked. McKay sighed and stared down at the floor.

"I'm sorry." He said. "This is all my fault."

"What are you talking about?"

"The jumper -"

"It malfunctioned. It happens. The ancients screwed up with a lot of stuff."

"Yeah, well I should have been able to fix it. I'm supposed to be the most brilliant scientist on this expedition…"

"And you are. But you aren't expected to know everything."

"Yes I am."

"No you aren't. You are as smart as someone can possibly be without being totally full of themselves."

"You don't think I'm full of myself?" Rodney asked, surprised.

"I said TOTALLY full of themselves. I still think you're full of yourself, just not totally." John answered awkwardly. To his relief, Rodney smiled a little bit. But the smile disappeared quickly.

"How can someone be so smart, and yet so stupid?" He asked.

"Huh?"

"You told me to stop. But I kept going, trying to fix it. Maybe if we'd jumped earlier, they wouldn't have spotted us. But I didn't stop."

"I don't really think it would've made that big a difference…"

"I'm still sorry. I should know by now, that you a smart guy too. There've been so many times when I thought something, but you knew better. And I still never listen…" His voice trailed off. John wasn't sure what to say. Until this point, he was sure Rodney hadn't even noticed he'd been doing that.

"It's okay, Rodney." He said. "Just try listening next time."

McKay now had his back against the wall, his shoulders slumped and feet on the bed, knees bent up. John noticed his eyes seemed glossy, and his complexion looked a bit pasty.

"Hey, are you feeling alright?" He asked after a moment.

"Fine." Rodney mumbled. "I'm just a bit cold."

John frowned. The cramped room was anything but cold, with no windows for ventilation. Yet Rodney stripped the thin, scratchy blanket from his bed, and wrapped it around himself.

"Are you sure? It's actually pretty warm in here. You might have a fever."

"I'm okay. I just need some rest." It was incredible how the agitated, anxious man whom John had entered the cell with, sat in front of him now, tired and quiet. It was very out of character for Rodney to not complain about even the slightest ailment.

Yet John didn't want to further injure Rodney's ego by persisting, so he dropped it.

A few minutes later, Rodney was laying on his cot, facing the wall away from John, breathing heavily. He was asleep.

John decided to follow suit. It was most likely still very early, but he was tired, and in no frame of mind to devise a brilliant escape plan.

He lay back, and glanced over at his friend. He wondered if Rodney felt everyone was disappointed in him if he didn't know something. Admittedly, John thought Rodney knew too much for his own good, but he never felt that the scientist had failed if he didn't know something. That would be way too much pressure on one person.

Sheppard fell asleep eventually, thinking that maybe some of McKay's complaining was justified.

A/N: Sorry about the wait. Please R/R!


End file.
